Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is scheduled to visit the United States on April 16 to meet with Biden. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimichi Mogi, in a rare call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on April 5, urged Beijing to improve the human rights situation in Xinjiang and stop the crackdown in Hong Kong. Some analysts say that Tokyo’s stronger attitude may also be related to the U.S. military brass’s assessment that Xi Jinping will attack Taiwan by force within six years. Kyodo News pointed out in an article that if the Chinese Communist Party attacked Taiwan by force, Japan would be in a national crisis near at hand.
According to an April 5 article by Kyodo News, Japan faces a major choice in its strategy toward China: Should it build U.S. land-based missiles in the Japanese archipelago to counter the Chinese Communist Party? As Prime Minister Kan’s visit to the U.S. approaches, the idea of building a U.S. missile network in Asia has surfaced as an important issue within the Japanese government. The background reason is that senior U.S. military officials have analyzed that the Chinese Communist Party may attack Taiwan in the near future. The U.S. side aims to target missiles from Japan and other places to pose a threat to the Chinese Communist Party, thus discouraging the idea of attacking Taiwan. But the risk of raising military tensions by triggering opposition from the Chinese Communist Party also lingers. Japan is forced to face a major choice.
Inevitable
According to the article, Japanese government sources involved in security work believe that “it is necessary to consider the direction of accepting the deployment of land-based missiles from the viewpoint of deterring the Chinese Communist Party. The opposition of Japanese domestic public opinion is estimated to be strong, but the defense of Taiwan is the most important subject directly related to the security and safety of Japan.”
Aquilino, the incoming commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, emphasized the need to construct a missile network in Asia. Current outgoing Commander Davidson noted that a Chinese Communist attack on Taiwan is likely to occur “within six years. The sense of crisis expressed by the U.S. is pushing the Japanese government toward new cooperation with the United States.
Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said at an April 2 press conference about the military power of the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan, which are facing each other, that “the balance is tilting toward the Chinese Communist Party. The gap is widening year by year.” He expressed concern. When asked on Fuji TV on the 4th if he was worried about the CCP’s moves, Kan also replied that he “feels it personally. He stressed that in dealing with China-Taiwan relations, “it is important for Japan and the United States to cooperate to create an environment for a peaceful resolution while maintaining deterrence.
This article describes Japan’s acceptance of the deployment faction’s projection of its understanding of the situation: If the Chinese Communist Party attacks Taiwan by force, then Japan, which is close at hand, will be in a national crisis. Because of this, it is necessary to work with the United States to increase deterrence and warn the CCP that unification by force will lead to a bust.
However, there is also a cautious discourse within the Japanese government about early deployment (of missiles). Behind this is the concern that “it may give rise to opposing arguments such as ‘should Japan be pushed to the front line in the event of an emergency in Taiwan'” (source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). According to the analysis, few local governments have offered to deploy the plan because it is envisioned that the deployment site would become a target for Chinese communist missiles in the event of an emergency.
This Kyodo article also says that the idea that the move would have serious implications for Japan’s diplomacy with China was also mentioned. Maintaining good Japan-China economic relations while putting strong pressure on the CCP is not an easy task.
Reservations
The article concludes that the Japanese government has not made a clear statement on the idea of deploying (missiles) and is waiting to see what public opinion and countries will do. Foreign Minister Toshimichi Mogi told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives on April 2 that he had “received a clarification from the U.S. side that ‘we are not in a position to deploy immediately and have not asked any allied countries about their intention to accept it,'” avoiding any in-depth discussion.
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